(670 The Score) The trade of outfielder Adam Eaton to the Nationals in December 2016 was a deal that again paid dividends for the White Sox late Monday night.
The White Sox agreed to deal 25-year-old right-hander Dane Dunning to the Rangers for right-hander Lance Lynn, according to reports. Lynn is a frontline starter who posted a 3.32 ERA and 1.06 WHIP last season. Along with right-hander Lucas Giolito and right-hander Reynaldo Lopez, Dunning was one of the three pieces that the White Sox acquired in exchange for Eaton, who coincidentally agreed to rejoin Chicago on a one-year deal Tuesday.
Giolito has blossomed into an ace, becoming an All-Star in 2019 and then following it up by posting a 3.48 ERA and 1.04 WHIP this past season. That means two-fifths of the team’s rotation in 2021 will have come from the Eaton trade, which White Sox television analyst Steve Stone noted while explaining how it’s a win-now move.
“Lance Lynn is going to help them win right now, and that’s what they’re looking for,” Stone said on the Dan Bernstein Show on Tuesday. “Lynn’s contract is over after this season, so we’ll see what happens with that. When you make good trades, and the Giolito trade, it’s going to be known as the Giolito trade from now on, that trade for Adam Eaton paid tremendous dividends. Not only does Giolito emerge as one of the aces of this staff, but now you turn Dunning who came over in that deal into Lance Lynn. It gives you two of your five starters. It all goes back to contracts. If Adam Eaton hadn’t had a good team-controllable contract for a long period of time, you’d have never gotten the return that you got. So you make a good contract with these guys, which is good for the player, good for the team, then you move them off and you get pieces that you can use not only right away but down the road. So when you get 40% of your starting rotation with one trade of an outfielder who was pretty good – Eaton was a good player, but not a great player, just a good one.
“It really, really showed that the front office of the White Sox – Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams – really understood what they were doing and what they were getting in return and what they could do with it once they got it. I’m pretty happy with this deal.”